The Concept of Standardized Heal Amino Acid Digestibilities: Principles and Application in Feed Ingredients for Piglets

In this review, the terminology that is used to describe ileal amino acid (AA) digestibilities in piglet feed ingredients is defined. If one accepts that the determination of AA digestibilities should be based on the ileal analysis method, one should consider that ileal digesta contains variable amounts of endogenous crude protein (CP), which originates mainly from digestive secretions, sloughed-off epithelial cells and mucins. The ileal endogenous CP and AA losses are separated into basal ileal endogenous CP and AA losses (IAAL(B)), which are not influenced by the feed ingredient composition, and specific ileal endogenous CP and AA losses (IAAL(S)), which are induced by feed ingredient characteristics such as level and type of fiber and anti-nutritional factors (ANF). Depending how ileal endogenous CP and AA losses are considered in the measurement of CP and AA digestibilities, digestibility values are expressed as apparent (AID), standardized (SID), or true (TID) ileal digestibilities of CP and AA. The main concern associated with the use of AID values in diet formulation for pigs is that they are not additive in mixtures of feed ingredients. Consequently, the concept of standardized ileal CP and AA digestibilities was introduced by correcting AID values for basal ileal endogenous CP and AA losses (IAAL(B)). The correction for both IAAL(B) and IAAL(S) yields TID values, however, routine procedures to measure IAAL(S) are not yet available. In principle, SID values should be preferred, because they represent the fundamental properties of the feed ingredient. There exist only few reports on SID of CP and AA in feedstuffs frequently used in piglet nutrition. These include soybeans (SB), soybean meal (SBM), soy proteins (SP), soy protein concentrate (SPC), soy protein isolate (SPI), corn gluten (CG), wheat gluten (WG), pea protein (PeaP), potato protein (PotP), fish meal (FM) and whey proteins (WP), but the results obtained are inconsistent. Differences in SID values within feed ingredients may, at least in part, be attributed to different processing conditions or inherent differences of the assay feed ingredients, Moreover, there is some evidence that the determination of SID values and IAAL(B) in piglets may be confounded by the dietary CP level of the assay diet, age and (or) body weight (BW), the level of feed intake or the methodological approach used to determine IAAL(B).